Reddick Added To Long List Of Chancellor Candidates

State Rep. Alzo Reddick, D-Orlando, is among nearly 50 candidates who have applied or been nominated to replace Barbara Newell as chancellor of the state university system.

A Florida Board of Regents search committee will review applications today in Tallahassee. Interviews will be this month and a chancellor may be named at the regents' meeting May 23-24.

Reddick, on leave from a teaching position at Valencia Community College, said Tuesday he probably will decline his nomination by the Jacksonville Urban League because he does not have the best possible qualifications. He said his background is primarily in teaching and his ambitions are at the community college level.

Reddick said the new chancellor should be either a superior academic, able to attract top scholars to Florida, or a political operator able to increase financial support for education.

His favorite in the latter category is Charlie Reed, Gov. Bob Graham's chief of staff, who is considered by some legislators and regents to be the top candidate -- if he wants the job. Reed, who was nominated twice, has declined to say.

The regents have indicated a preference for applicants familiar with the nine-university system. Newell, who announced her resignation in late March, never had worked in Florida when she came to the state in 1981. She was president of Wellesley College in Massachusetts.

Newell said she resigned be- cause she was getting ''mixed signals'' from the regents. Support- ers praised her accomplishments

in planning, but some legislators said privately that her personal style was too aloof for Florida politics.

Newell has agreed to stay on until a replacement is found. A Tallahassee resident, she said she hopes to teach.

Candidates for the $97,000-a-year job now working in Florida include: George Bedell, executive vice chancellor; Roy McTarnaghan, vice chancellor for academic programs; Robert Bryan, University of Florida provost; Frank Scruggs, a regent from Miami; Clark Maxwell Jr., executive director of the community college system; and Roger Nichols, deputy commissioner of education.

A number of top administrators from other states are in the running, including: Bill Atchley, president of Clemson University; Thomas Carpenter, president of Memphis State University; John Duff, chancellor of higher education in Massachusetts; Donald Gerth, president of California State College at Sacramento; Allan De Giulio, president of Fairleigh Dickinson University; and Joseph McFadden, president of the University of South Dakota. Three candidates are women, and one, state Sen. Betty Castor, D-Tampa, has withdrawn. The others are state Sen Carrie Meek, D-Miami, and an Indiana woman who wrote that she was interested in the ''entry-level position'' of chancellor and requested an application.

There are several black candidates, including Reddick, Scruggs and Meek.